TechLifeMashup.com

The Facts of Starting a Small Business

Steve — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:13:30 +0000

Small businesses play an important role in the business world today generating more than 60% of all new jobs in the past 15 years! There’s no doubt that many new entrepreneurs just starting out are going to have a good number of questions regarding small businesses such as the rate of failure, rate of success, average growth rates, and the list goes on. For these reasons and more I decided to post this very informative infographic on the facts of starting a small business, which I think will answer many of those questions for entrepreneurs just starting out: (click image to enlarge)

Source: Grasshoper

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Josh Williams

Steve — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:59:02 +0000

Gowalla is a location-based social networking service where users can track friends, check-in to places, and get rewarded for exploring the locations around them. If you’re familiar with Foursquare, then you already pretty much know what Gowalla is all about. The increasingly popular services has surpassed 150,000 users and $8.4 million in venture capitol as of 2010 with no signs of slowing down. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Josh Williams in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Josh Williams
Age: 40+
Location: Austin, Texas
Claim to fame: Gowalla.com (Location-based social networking service.)
Initial cost: NA

How He Did It:

Josh Williams was born and raised in Texas where he attended traditional schooling. Josh didn’t attend a traditional college education path, but rather took more to the unconventional methods of learning and self educating. Josh worked as a Design Director for roughly 9 months in 2000 before leaving to start his own Web UI consulting business, which he ran for roughly 8 years. In 2007, Josh Williams went onto start a company he called Gowalla, which is a location-based social networking service similar to Foursquare. The service has seen huge growth in terms of the number of users and funding from outside investors. As of 2010, Gowalla surpassed 150,000 users and over $8 million in funding.

Lessons Learned:

Take action! Nothing can ever happen if you don’t take action. Learn by doing.
Always be willing to explore new paths and be open to new ideas.
Creating businesses around growing markets (i.e. mobile) is always a good approach.
Look to others both online and offline when needing additional direction and guidance.

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Paul English.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Support National Entrepreneurs Day

Steve — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:33:51 +0000

Entrepreneurship is the backbone to societies across the globe. It’s through all these small business startups (both online and offline) that billions of dollars in revenue are generated and millions of jobs are created. It might come as a surprise to many that there currently isn’t any type of official day set aside to recognize the bold hard work of this work population. Grasshopper is a web software company who designs software with small business in mind, and they are the ones behind a growing effort to make November 19, 2010 National Entrepreneurs’ Day across the country. Whether you’re an entrepreneur yourself or just someone who appreciates all the hard work and positive impact these folks make, I would strongly encourage you to take a look at entrepreneursday.org and participate in signing the virtual petition get this day made official.

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Paul English

Steve — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:41:31 +0000

Kayak.com is a meta travel search engine style website that provides the user with the best possible travel deals available online at a given time. The travel site has since gone onto become a household name similar to Google or Facebook. It’s not surprise though at such a complex startup would require the assistance of additional fellow entrepreneurs. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Paul English in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Paul English
Age: 47
Location: Boston, MA (USA)
Claim to fame: Kayak.com (Travel search engine website designed to help find the best deals being offered.)
Initial cost: NA

How He Did It:

Paul English was born and raised in Boston, MA. He attended UMASS Boston where he received his Bachelors in Computer Science in 1987 and later his MS in Computer Science in 1989. Paul went onto work various engineering and product management roles at different large corporations in the Massachusetts area over the next several years. Paul would go onto launch a startup in 2004 with a few others co-founding what we all know as Kayak.com. Kayak.com is a travel search engine website designed to aggregate travel data from all over the web into one site providing the user with the best possible travel deals at a given time. Kayak.com was launched publicly in 2005 and has since gone onto grow significantly. Kayak has raised over $200 million in funding to date and has made one successful buyout of another travel business.

Lessons Learned:

Teamwork is one of the best ways to get a successful startup launched.
Always be looking for new ways to grow your knowledge and experience.
Don’t let failure get in the way of trying new things.
Remember to always plan and then take action!

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Daniel Ek.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Aaron Patzer of Mint.com Answers Your Startup Questions

Steve — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:48:44 +0000

Aaron Patzer of Mint.com created a free online personal finance management system for the everyday person who wants a simple way to manage their finances. Mint has since seen massive mainstream success, was bought recently by Quicken, and now continues to grow doubling nearly every several months with no sign of slowing down. Aaron quit his job when he was 25 to venture into entrepreneurship full time. The journey was long and hard, but he came out of the other end of the tunnel as a successful entrepreneur. This past Thursday, Aaron Patzer did a Q&A session with online participants answering everything and anything with regards to how he started his business, how he promoted it, and many other great questions any budding entrepreneur could greatly benefit from hearing. So pull up a chair and take the next hour to get the REAL answers to all those questions you’ve had about starting your own business. Check it out here:

Watch live video from Inc. Magazine on Justin.tv

Before They Were Entrepreneurs

Steve — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:17:20 +0000

Sometimes we forget that every successful entrepreneur starts at ground zero when launching a new business. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember a time when the likes of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates weren’t the mega successes they are today. Knowing that almost all entrepreneurs you read about today came from a place outside the world of entrepreneurship can really help to humanize your own journey to starting your own business and help ground your thoughts in reality instead of making them seem like a distant dream that is too far out of reach. That’s why I wanted to share a very interesting (and amusing) infographic, which highlights the first jobs of some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs so that you can see how they did in fact come from a very similar place to where you may be right now:

Source: Grasshopper

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Daniel Ek

Steve — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:32:30 +0000

Spotify is a peer to peer music streaming service that has seen significant growth in the past few years. Not only does Spotify offer online services, but the service can be used through your mobile phone and desktop as well. In an age when services like Pandora and Groove Shark continue to rise in popularity, it’s no surprise to see additional competitors stepping out into this growing market filled with hopeful entrepreneurs. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Daniel Ek in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Daniel Ek
Age: NA
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Claim to fame: Spotify (P2P online music streaming service with desktop and mobile support.)
Initial cost: < $2000

How He Did It:

Daniel Ek is a serial entrepreneur from Europe who started his first company when he was only 14. Daniel founded Spotify in 2006 and launched the product to the public for the first time in October of 2008. Spotify uses a paid-subscription model to generate revenue from the product. They also offer a free service supported by ads similar to Pandora. Availability is currently limited to only Europe, but plans to expand to the US and further are in the works as popularity continues to rise for Spotify.

Lessons Learned:

Emerging markets and trends are great starting points for someone looking to launch a startup.
Competition doesn’t mean there isn’t anymore room for a new business in that area.
You’re never too young (or old) to start your own business.

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Tim Westergren.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Spotify.com

2010 Top Cities for Entrepreneurs

Steve — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:09:55 +0000

I’m sure you’ve heard location is everything. That couldn’t be more true when trying to start your own small business. Foot traffic for any offline business can make or break your long-term success. That being the case, selecting an optimal location for your new business to assure you get the high volume of targeted traffic you’re looking for is mission critical to say the least. So wouldn’t be nice to know what the current list of top cities are for someone looking to start a small business? Well, entrepreneurs you’re in luck! Here now are the 2010 top cities for entrepreneurs looking to start a new business based on a variety of different factors:

Source: Grasshopper

Master The Art of SEO Keyword Research

Steve — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:44:41 +0000

Quality SEO development and keyword research is vital to the success of any internet entrepreneur or blogger. While there are a variety of other factors that come into play when creating a successful business, I think we all can agree that no traffic means no one knows about you exist. This sole fact makes the importance of SEO keyword research immensely important. Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income blog recently did a live walkthrough demonstration on how to develop and build out both on site and off site SEO for your website from start to finish. It’s highly detailed and covers all the basics. So if you’re looking to learn more about SEO, be sure to check out the tutorial video below (embedding disabled – click video to watch):

I should note that the SEO training video above uses a tool called Market Samari, which I recently bought and have come to rely on heavily. It is a fantastic tool that makes SEO and keyword research much easier. Enjoy!

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Tim Westergren

Steve — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:14:53 +0000

Pandora Radio is a online music service that provides recommendations automatically to the user of similar music based on their previous selections. The popular music service has grown significantly since its launch years ago and recently has seen huge growth from the mobile market space it has begun to penetrate. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Tim Westergren in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Tim Westergren
Age: NA
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Claim to fame: Pandora (Online music recommendation service and player.)
Initial cost: < $1000

How He Did It:

Tim Westergren was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Tim went onto obtain his BA in Political Science. Shortly after graduating in 1999, Westergren met up with Will Glaser to form the Music Genome Project, which would produce a mathematical algorithm to sort, analyze, and organize music in a variety of different ways. They have since patented the algorithm and used it to create the now popular service of Pandora Radio. Pandora is a online music service that recommends additional songs to the user based upon their previous selections and ratings of songs using the algorithm mentioned previously. Since its launch, Pandora has grown significantly and expanded into the growing mobile market space significantly. Pandora currently offers a free and paid subscription service where the subscription service allows one to skip ads and more songs. Tim Westergren’s Pandora Radio continues to grow in popularity and profits.

Lessons Learned:

Your previous education and career path does not determine what you are capable of doing in the future.
Working together on projects can help turn a good idea into a great idea.
Continuous growth and education as an entrepreneur is important for both you and the company.
Finding your niche market (or unique) spin is crucial.

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: David Sacks.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources: